According to the Sleep Institute, sleep is a basic need of the organism and its satisfaction allows us to survive; we sleep in order to be awake during the day and daily activity makes sleep necessary.
The necessary hours of sleep are not the same for all people or in all moments of our life, in general they are the ones that allow us to maintain our daily activity without having sleepiness until the next night.
Apart from the basic guidelines we should follow to fall asleep, it is important to take into account the posture we adopt, as studies show that poor posture hygiene while sleeping is one of the main factors that cause rest problems, back and neck pain, headaches and contractures.

What is the correct posture for sleeping?
Most of the experts agree that the best posture to sleep is on your back because in this way we support the whole back on the mattress without pressure, and it is even better if we put a small pillow under our knees to favour the return circulation; this posture seems to also avoid the premature appearance of wrinkles because no area of the face is pressed, however, it favours snoring.
The side position is the second recommended one and the most suitable for pregnant women; in this case we must take into account that the head must be correctly aligned with the sacrum so we must use a pillow that allows this alignment, which is neither too high nor too low, and have the legs slightly bent.
The face down position is generally not recommended because the back does not stay aligned and forces to keep the head sideways producing a high cervical tension, besides it compresses the ribcage and the abdomen.

Which mattress and pillow to choose?
Besides the posture, it is very important the mattress and pillow we use so that the rest surface is the right one to avoid producing incorrect curves of the back. In general the mattress should be rigid enough to allow the back to always be kept straight, without curvatures that can produce pain or even injuries. As for the fabric, this is a factor to be taken into account in special cases, for example, if you have allergies and in the case of people who stay in bed for a long time to avoid bedsores.
The rigidity and height of the pillow will depend on whether we sleep on our side or on our back, it will be higher in case of sleeping on our side and of a minimum height if our indicated posture is on our stomach.
In our section rest you can see all the possibilities of pillows and mattresses to favour the rest, orthopaedic, anti-scarring and articulated bed mattresses, as well as the wedges to raise the legs or the head in case of gastric reflux or breathing difficulty.